Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Saturday December 19, 2009 @09:29AM
from the could-have-just-used-terms-and-conditions dept.

ssv03 writes "The New York Times is reporting that Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has spoken out in a press release (PDF) and is calling for a boycott."

It's about removing the law that denies student loans for anyone with a marijuana conviction. Because of course taking someone's education away and forcing them to be blue collar isn't exactly the best way to minimize marijuana's impact on people's lives. The wierd thing is is that the punishment/getting caught is far more damaging than the drug itself.

What, it's impossible to go to community college, then pay the rest yourself?

It's still denying a person the same opportunity based on their personal choices, which in my mind is in the same league as denying a person a student loan on the basis of religion (another personal choice). People should not be judged by what they choose to do with their own bodies, only actions as they relate to other people.

"It's still denying a person the same opportunity based on their personal choices, which in my mind is in the same league as denying a person a student loan on the basis of religion (another personal choice). "

Religion isn't agianst the law.

But if it was, you're saying it would be ok? If it were legal to deny a person a student loan because of their religion would it make it right? It would still be prejudice based on a personal choice. You simply don't see it that way because you do not personally approve.

Seems to me to be a pretty big difference, I suppose for the purpose of making your point, you chose to ignore it.

Legality is irrelevant to the point I was making. What is legal and what is not has little to do with what is right and wrong, what is ethical and what isn't.

"People should not be judged by what they choose to do with their own bodies, only actions as they relate to other people."

They chose not to follow the eligibility guidelines.

I'm not debating that. I'm simply saying the guidelines are unjust and prejudi

You seem to believe that public health is the motivation behind today's drug laws. That is a mistake. If you're sincerely interested in reducing consumption, you would allow people to be productive in their own personal ways, instead of penalizing them for attempting to tune out their miseries after stealing their land and enslaving them(yes, this economic system IS slavery).. You need to focus on less authoritarian methods.. prison is not the answer.

It is a shame that you are not willing to put your name - or even a fake name - behind your reply; we'll never know if you ever bother to read this or reply to it.

That said, I urge you to take a more balanced look at the issue of drug enforcement. If you step back you'll find that the enforcement of drug related offenses in reality rather closely mirrors those of alcohol related offenses. Sure, the pro-pot lobby loves to conjure up horror stories about brutalized old ladies but when you actually get to

As heard on the news about a year ago, "I think we can all agree that there are too many abortions".

But other than that, opinions vary a lot.

The people who are pro choice, would typically talk about the importance of sexual education in school, the importance of condoms and other contraceptives.

Those who want to make the choice for the woman based on their own values, usually also wants to minimize sexual education (as it should only be done in the context of marriage) and minimize access to contra

If you mean "helping" make sure they don't get an abortion by whatever means necessary (including lying to them and setting up "pregnancy resource centers" that pretend to offer abortions but really just string women along for long enough they can't seek one elsewhere), and by "educating" you mean misleading for ideological reasons, then yes, exactly that. Seriously, the anti-choice movement is quite evil.

They believe abortion is murder. They are willing to go all the way to murder of their own if they think it will stop them. They try to distance themselves from the clinic bombers, but rarely do you actually hear full-out condemnation. And yes, they'll lie to stop abortions. But what I think is most horrible is that one of the proven most effective way of stopping abortions is sex ed combined with free available contraception. And the anti-choice people object to that. That makes then not pro-life, but evil anti-choice people that do not have the best interests of children at heart, but want to push their personal and religious beliefs on others against their will in a manner that they know harms others. It's not lying to prevent murder that makes them evil. It's lying to cause the situations that cause abortions, then calling abortion murder.

The few principled ones who want to stop abortions and think abortion is murder usually end up pro-choice because they realize that pro-choice pushes education and doesn't push abortions. They realize that making it illegal will still result in abortions, but that the illegal ones jeopardize not just the baby's life but the mother's as well, and they realize that a parent that wants to kill their kid before the child is even born may not be the best environment for the child, and that aborting this one so the next, when the time is right, will have a family ready to receive it and a better life is the best thing for all involved (and of course, the hind sight to realize that education and contraception would have prevented the whole situation).

And the problem with all "pro-choice" organizations and individuals is that they only care about the adults. They never consider that the baby, could it speak, might rather live even if it's car seat wouldn't be loaded in an SUV and mom wouldn't get to have the perfect, 2.4 kid household with the perfect husband and the perfect career. Instead, they declare on rather spurious grounds that the baby isn't a baby and say, "just excise it!" And many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian, or

If you believe in something strongly (and forcing women to harbor a parasite for 9 months / killing children, depending on which way you see it, is an emotional subject), you tend to think the other side is made up of assholes.

Well, please do invent the absolute worst kinds of inhumane treatment to prove that women must have no control over their own bodies. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, and if you can make out an expression on a fetus that's less than 12 weeks old, you've got an imagination too vivid to be anonymously yelling on the internet. Of the vanishingly small percentage of abortions that are performed when the baby has passed the normal age of viability, the vast majority of those are performed to save the life of the mother, or to prevent the infant from having a short, brutish, and pointless life. The misogynistic organizations are attacking a strawman that was never relevant in the slightest.

The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby. Late term abortions are performed to save lives and limit suffering. We find it sane to put down a dog that's been grievously injured, but for some reason ending the suffering of a child born without a brain is some gross unjust cruelty, and you somehow believe that a child cursed to die before their first birthday should be forced to live through a year of brutish suffering, rather than being given the only kindness we have.

Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.

The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby.

These abuses are not imagined, they are real. Even if 2 weeks after she found out she was pregnant, that doesn't make it OK. I also think many people may be OK with abortion in the "logical" instances you use in the defense of abortion. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are simply "choice".

Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.

I fail to see how you can justify something as "right" because,"They were going to do it anyway!" Michael Vick would still be fighting dogs if we held that standard to everything with any sort of "moral" argument to it. People still fight dogs, every day. And perhaps you are right, less women die. But they kill more babies since it is easy and legal. I am not going to be for heroin being legal just because it may save some lives from bad needles. (I know they can be attained free in places, but you get the point.)

I choose the pleasant feeling of the right choice, and not advocating murder. There is no way around it, that is what it is. Saying a child is not "born", and therefore not alive well, you might want to reserve a nice spot in hell with the rest of the lawyers and lobbyists that deserve to go there. Whatever you vision of hell may be.

One must see the forest from the trees. Abortion for choice is undeniably wrong to anyone if you can concede that a child is alive (refuse to debate that right now) except to anyone who is blinded by selfishness. Killing, or more specifically murder, is wrong. There is no moral way to justify murder. What gives you the right? Would I be justified in killing 2 members of your family to save all 6 of mine? If you can not answer that question in the negative, then you are delusionally on the "moral extreme" and fail to see that "making the hard choice" will only allow whoever setup that dilemma to win.

[ Is it all about not letting a bad guy win? No, it is about staying pure and not succumbing to wrong choices simply because they are easy. Anything less will taint you, and allow you to taint others. I for one, do not wish to welcome our tainted overlords. : ) ]

Here's some perspective from these [guttmacher.org] two [guttmacher.org] sets of statistics from the Guttmacher Institute. To give you the benefit of the doubt, we'll assume that every woman who claimed the reason for having an abortion was because of health risks or concern for the health of the fetus (~2%) had it after 19 weeks, and that the health risks, or health defects were all of the utmost gravity. For the sake of this argument we won't discuss anything before 12 weeks, although it is important to note that at 12 weeks the brain has

The vast, vast, vast majority of abortion cases have absolutely nothing to do with mitigating significant risks to the mother or mercifully euthanasing a non-viable foetus. Vast. It is a convenience issue - the mother doesn't want it, so she kills it and gets on with her life. Often it's documented as "risk of severe mental anguish" or some such to get around legislative issues but that's not relevant here.

Please stop saying that anti-abortionists think women should have no control over t

Lol... at the point to which you are referring there is no baby. Just a high chance of a baby in future. The fetus' inability to talk is not the issue. The issue is that the cell blob does not have a brain and could not possibly know what to choose. Therefore if it could talk it would likely say nothing, since it can't comprehend anyways.

It is similar to saying, if plastic bottles could talk, they'd ask to be recycled. That statement is meaningless because plastic bottles like fetus' have no desires. Sinc

So you say that deciding to end the life of a fetus is immoral. Animals in nature have been practicing infanticide [wikipedia.org] since animals began walking the earth. Is it immoral to destroy a non sentient fetus versus a developing infant? If God created all things then he also built this into all animals, the only difference between us and the animal kingdom, is we do it earlier in the childs development.

Is it moral, or immoral neither is relevant. All things on earth do it, all have done it for thousands of y

To your point about most abortions around the 9th week.... take the tumor out then & see if it's a human.... not likely. Will it survive then outside the womb & develop? No... so it's not a human yet.

How do you define human? A fetus at 22 weeks development can survive to adulthood. Would you define that as human, then? A newborn baby can not survive without help. Is that newborn baby then not human as it can not survive without help?

As a long time progressive pro-lifer I must say that the type of groups you are talking about to my knowledge have not existed since the 80's. Most pro-life groups I know of that do outreach have people that help with getting a job, getting into school and very often helping with childcare. The last one I volunteered at even had a licensed therapist come in that treated issues like having an abortion, domestic violence and post-partum depression. Show me a Planned Parenthood that does counseling for grie

What is actually going on there is the tacit assumption that a developing baby doesn't count as a human. If that's your argument, you should say it.

A fetus doesn't count as a human being. And even if it did, the adult counts more.

There. Happy?

No, not happy. What is a fetus, but an unborn human baby. (unless it is an alien fetus) So it does count.

And no, my feelings that everyone who believes in abortion should die (joking) does not count more than your's that you are right just because you hadn't been born yet. You would then argue that your opinion doesn't count at all, but then I would say please see above.

Your reasoning is sound but it's not well founded because plenty of people would disagree with your assumptions, particularly:

My starting assumption was that it was the presence of a mind that defines the presence of a person.

Why not differentiate between incomplete but developing minds and "empty human tissue" as you call it?

Consider that my liver is never going to become a sentient being without the intercession of some advanced technology. But if a woman is pregnant, her undeveloped fetus will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all. Isn't that an important distinction, ev

That's the trouble with all anti-abortion groups: they only care about babies being born, after wards, the mother is on her own - even if it means they starve and are homeless. And many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian.

Your ignorance of the anti-abortion movement is hilarious. My parents/family have (for 20+ years, now) been very involved in supporting multiple organizations in SoCal whose primary concern is taking care of single mothers who choose not to have an abortion - providing a home for them (often for the first couple years), while also helping them find a job, including providing professional skills training and support for taking college courses, as well as paying for food, baby needs, medical expenses, etc. He

Until you've lived in the culture try not to pretend that you know about it just because you've cherry-picked choice phrases from someone who makes a claim that allows you to cast the opposition in a universally negative light.

The number one way to prevent abortion is to educate and make contraception available. Organizations that claim to want to reduce the number of abortions that don't address the number one preventative measure seem to either be irrational or to have some other goal other than the st

I wouldn't have a problem if Chase had declared an organization ineligible, but that's not what they did. Instead they wimped out and hid the vote tallies, probably blocking votes to organizations that those running the contest don't support, without even saying who or why they were disqualified.

American Express (AmEx) did something similar in the Boston area. However, they thought it through first. An organization that wanted to participate had to submit a proposal on what they would do with the money and description of the organization's misson. AmEx selected about 40 (all worthwhile) organizations to vote on. AmEx got a reasonable selection of charities to participate--some of the really large ones, and a few highly specialized. The organizations used their participation to encourage their members to vote and become engaged to the organiztion goals.

I think every organization that was selected got some funding (perhaps at the $1000 level) so there weren't hard feeling from the losers.

Being "anti-abortion" doesn't necessarily mean one advocates the criminalization of it. I personally think abortion is a disgusting cop-out and an affront to humanity in most cases, but I also realize there is enough of an argument over when life begins that it becomes essentially a moral/religious matter, and you run into all kinds of church/state issues if you attempt to criminalize it. So, until such time as that question can be definitively answered, I think it's something that needs to be allowed to

When life begins is a scientific matter, not moral or religious. The fact that egg and sperm comprise living cells means it's alive from day one. Hell, people argue viruses are alive and they lack many of the properties of living cells. However, you can definitely argue that in those early days while the genetic material is all there to form a human it's still a clump of cells. But the first few months in, when you've got a brain forming, a beating heart, a nervous system, limps and other identifiable organ

However, that is not the relevant issue. Only the strictest of vegans actually condemn any taking of life whatsoever (and most will reluctantly admit that their own immune system or simply cleaning their cookware kills some form of life).

Clearly, we do not oppose the killing of any human cells whatsoever, that happens all the time no matter what we do. My individual cells have no rights to themselves. A pint of my blood extracted into a plastic bag is not a human being. When the surgeon sends a human append

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

"Students for Sensible Drug Policy" sounds like a bunch of douchebag college kids trying to game the system for 25k in free pot money. God forbid Chase dumps them for another Susan G. Komen or some such.

Oh wow, so anyone using marijuana is a drug addict. You ever drink coffee or alcohol, ya addict?

SSDP is about repealing the law passed by an anti-drug crusading republican which denied student loans to anyone with a marijuana defense. Because of course taking people's education away is certainly going to lead them on the rigth path in life. That's sarcasm, in case you couldn't comprehend it.

But coming back to the original point, is that a charity?
Just from reading the summary, it seems like all the groups that were removed were activist groups endorsing a specific change in laws.
Its one thing to ask Chase to endorse the charity of your choice, its another to ask them to make a political donation to support your pet cause.

If that's Chase's policy, they should just explain that and be consistent about it, and far fewer people would be complaining.

Chase did explain their policy, both upfront and after these groups started whining. They simply weren't eligible in the first place and got culled out after the first round of voting. Wikipedia describes SSDP as a "non-profit advocacy group", which is not the same thing as a charity. Below are some relevant quotes from the articles.

Chase opened its contest to any charity whose operating budget was less than $10 million and whose mission “aligned” with the bank’s corporate social responsibility guidelines."Chase’s eligibility rules make it clear that the bank can disqualify any participant."

Mr. Evangelisti said the 100 finalists “reflect those organizations that received the most votes among eligible participants.”

But coming back to the original point, is that a charity?
Just from reading the summary, it seems like all the groups that were removed were activist groups endorsing a specific change in laws.

Most activist groups still on the list do.

Its one thing to ask Chase to endorse the charity of your choice, its another to ask them to make a political donation to support your pet cause.

They put it up for a vote. When they didn't like the results, they excluded certain organizations and refused to give a reason. That's what people are upset about and I don't blame the organizations excluded for promoting a boycott.

Alcohol is in fact the only drug that I know of that has withdrawal symptoms that include death. If you are a severe alcoholic, you should not go cold turkey. From about.com [about.com]:

However, within six to 48 hours after not drinking, hallucinations may develop. These usually are visual hallucinations but they can also involve sounds and smells. They can last for a few hours up to weeks at a time.
Also within this time frame after quitting, convulsions or seizures can occur, which is the point at which alcohol wi

As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.--

You are 100% right. I think we should start with a comprehensive national program to provide free abortions for everyone who is not of the sinful white race. We would educate all the mothers of minorities that they have rights, provide for them, with a special tax on white people, perhaps, because of their sinful state, to pay for it.

Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

Pretty sure there's a sizable chunk of the middle east where all three of those are still accepted by mainstream society...whether or not that's a refutation of your argument is up for debate, though...

No debate. I could have written "in US" or "in the civilized world" or similar, and it would have been the same "argument". It's not an argument at all, just a lame attempt to condemn something by associating. Like condemning Christianity by linking it with child abuse/sex, or linking Islam and terrorism.

You'd like to think that individuals who are opposed to preventing unwanted children would be standing in line for the opportunity to adopt such children and raise them in a loving environment.

I know many people who are adopted (and who adopted children themselves). Adoption is never easy (and it is a lifelong commitment). And yeah, the only orphanage in my town is run (and funded) by one of those evil churches who are opposed to abortion.

I'm a member of SSDP. I'm also a member of Amnesty International - and I've been with AI much longer, and am much more involved with them - I've worked with the regional office in D.C. on a couple campaigns even. But I don't think it is at all fair to say that Amnesty's cases are any more important than those of groups like SSDP. And even if you think they are, in this specific case Amnesty wasn't one of the organizations SSDP was competing against. Neither was the Red Cross. Or Doctors without Borders. The organizations that _won_ this contest included things like the "Stella Adler Studio Of Acting". Now, I'm not going to get into what organizations are more worthy of the money, but seriously, if it's worth giving to art education programs then surely it can be worth giving to drug education programs as well.

Now, as for SSDP and similar organizations not being worthy in general - it sounds like you are thinking we are NORML or other legalization organizations. We aren't. We are not a "weed pushing organization", we are a drug policy reform organization. Look at cases like University of Michigan student Derek Copp - he was shot, through his lungs and liver by a police officer over what was later described as "a few tablespoons" of marijuana. A _misdemeanor_ offense in the state of Michigan. He nearly died over it. Look at our prisons - how many hundreds of thosands of people are in prison for no reason other than minor drug offenses? These are not violent people, these are people whose crimes are far less severe than those that Amnesty tries to free. I mean honestly, Amnestly works to help people proven guilty of murder in some cases. So what, we should try to save those people, but if your crime is just smoking a joint, you deserve to rot in prison forever for it? SSDP fights to restore financial aid to students convicted of drug offenses. I have a friend, who's extremely intelligent but from a very poor family. He had financial aid covering his entire college expense. And he got caught once smoking weed. Now he's working at McDonald's trying to save up enough money to go back. SSDP works to help people like him. SSDP works to promote _real_ drug education - the amount of people addicted to illegal drugs hasn't changed at all in nearly a hundred years - yet in just a decade, through _education_ not incarceration, we managed to cut the number of people addicted to nicotine (one of the most addictive substances we know of) in half!

So tell me this - why is saving lives lost to drugs not worth anything? Why is providing a good education to good kids not worth anything? Why is keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison not a worthy cause? I mean ok, I can accept you ranking the red cross up there higher than groups like SSDP - I mean they're purely about saving lives. But things like Amnesty International - they are only different from SSDP because of their size. They're both extremely political organizations trying to save the lives and freedoms of people who _they_ feel haven't done anything wrong.

Obviously Chase meant the top "non-embarassing to a big company" charities. Can you imagine if Chase had to donate $1M to the Marijuana Policy Project? I'm sure the board freaked out at the thought of "chase" and "MJ" being in the same sentence and said, "do whatever is necessary to make sure we don't get that association."

The reason a corporation give money to a charity isn't because it believes in the charity, but because it will get a blurb in paper saying how good they are and increase the brand good will. Does anyone really expect a corporation to spend $25000 so it can be on the news with a headline "Chase supports legalizing Drugs". I won't even get to the quagmire around abortion. I'm sure if they do this again, they'll pre-screen organizations that are allowed to participate. Frankly I'd been more concerned if they screened out an organization that helps people get out of credit card debt.

In both of those cases, you can be sure that they'd get plenty of blurbs in every news medium. They're getting blurbs now, but it's being tied to how secretive they are with money. Not sure I want to bank with them.

Those non profit get out of debt corporations are just collection agencies for the credit card companies. I'd be
even more concerned if one of those won the contest. Imagine how good it would look for them as they evaded taxes, got great PR, free advertising, and collected old debts all at once.

I run a 501(c)(3) that I formed in 2006. My organization was also in the running for the Chase Contest but was not one of the winners. While disappointed, I'm pleased that Chase undertook this contest using this approach. Generally corporate contests and donations go to the large charities; Chase at least gave us a chance. Following is the IRS information on being a 501(c)(3); note that the first paragraph states "[...]it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities[...]"

Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

The thing that I can't get over is that Chase is not required to do anything at all. Chase might not have gone about it the best possible way, but they did give a lot of money to charities, which they are under no obligation to do. I can't help but feel a little embarrassed for people who complain over how someone else gives their money away to charities.

Why can't we at least look on the bright side and be thankful that there are charities out there that now have more funds than they had before, rather

So instead of hiding the numbers, they could have just stated the organizations they were not going to qualify. It is the lack of transparency that is the problem, not the winners and losers. This is true in banking as well. The recent problems in finance is that US banks are acting like corrupt fiefdoms.

Disqualifying some of these would be quite simple. For instance, pot is still illegal, and the bank should not support illegal activities. Other groups likes to display pornography around schools and ot

And of course, doing so when they are visibly ranked in the top 20 is really bad PR... and this is generally a PR stunt so they are trying to keep the spin positive while becoming political. So much for caring for the community.

In fact, there's a perfectly valid reason for all involved charities to be pissed off - Chase is using them for PR in ways they don't deserve. Winning a public popularity contest gives exposure to a charity and can be used for good PR. Coming up first in a rigged poll is not going to make your charity look quite as good. Chase is trying to milk their donation for PR not just in the usual way ("look, we give money to charities we like") but also by making it appear that they care about your opinion while the

That's not the point. The point is that Chase, after making the results highly public, made them vanish without explanation from public view as soon as they started trending in a direction that Chase didn't care for.

If they'd actually come out and *said* "We're disqualifying these organisations on the grounds of _______..." and then removed those groups from the tally, that would be one thing, but this is quite another.

As I see it, they made the current votes public. As any fule kno, if you don't want to bias your election/survey/popularity contest you don't publish the votes as they come in since that will either encourage the losing parties to have to rally their troops or lose heart and give up, or cause the winning parties to get over-confident. Sure, these effects may cancel each other out but it's no longer a simple question of how do the people who can be bothered to think independently want to vote.

The fact that so many people are imprisoned or have otherwise have their lives ruined by the great war against drugs (self ownership) sickens me. Chase chose to put up a vote to determine what people believe sickens them most. Who are you or Chase to interfere?

Yeah, like the many people dead or wounded due to gang violence fueled by the street drug trade, or the many people addicted to drugs who can't get medical or treatment help because they will get arrested or simply ignored, the people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq due to terrorist groups funded largely by the heroin trade.

I could go on, but you're an idiot if you think the current US policy toward narcotics doesn't cause starving, dying and suffering.

People who think caring about drug policy is for bong-toting fratboys sicken me.

The thought that people are putting the legalization of a recreational drug over say giving somebody a hot meal sickens me.

The thought that people are putting giving someone a hot meal over say giving a good professional education sickens me.

The fact is that most of the people whose lives have been destroyed by drug-related arrests are not bored college kids looking for recreation. If your dad is rich enough your arrest will be stricken off police records. If you can pay a good enough lawyer you'll get probation. If you are poor you'll get a rap sheet that will haunt you forever.

Disclaimer: I have never used drugs, not even marijuana. But I support total legalization of all drugs.

It actually makes much more sense to complain and try to fix things where society is proactively hurting people than when society is just ignoring people or where some natural problem is.

I mean, an organization trying to figure out why someone is homeless is hard. Getting them off street is hard, as is making sure someone just doesn't show up to take their place.

Likewise, curing a disease is hard. We can spend millions on research that doesn't go anywhere.

Compares to those, not locking people up for drug us and not spending money to do so is incredibly efficient. We don't actually have to solve some biological or social problem. We just have to stop doing something.

It's like, if your house is falling apart, due to termites, random vandals, water damage...and a guy you're paying to run around punching holes in the wall with a sledgehammer.

Which problem are you going to address first to fix your house? I dunno about you, but I'd get the sledgehammer guy to stop, even if the other problems are 'worse' in some objective sense of how damaged your house is.

At issue here is their social agenda, not their efficient use of bailout monies.

This is highly reminiscent of when Obama asked for input from Americans for issues they wanted to see addressed; the very highest rated issue was legalization of marijuana and amnesty for those imprisoned or otherwise punished.

So what happened? When the time came to address the issues, Obama laughed it off, literally laughing about it in public, during the program for talking about these issues, and acting like it was "crazy talk."

The people running this country - and you'd better believe that includes the people running the banks and other major players in the financial system, such as the insurance companies - are completely out of touch.

Even if most people support marijuana law reform [drugpolicy.org], they aren't actually proponents, just not opponents. In both the Obama survey and the Facebook survey, results that seem to show that marijuana law reform has a lot of proponents are skewed because the style of survey trends towards over-representing the young and the vocal. It still remains that most Americans just don't care enough for anything to come of it.

Maybe you live in an echo chamber, but show me public opinion polls claiming support for legalizing Marijuana. If you're so confident, why don't you run for Congress on it, where you can bring it to the floor for a vote?

Fact is, it's a political death sentence. More people would likely oppose it than support it, despite the few rallies of college students. Any politician outside of california who openly supports it would get attacked immediately, and their opponent would be able to raise more money.